NØ MAN
Between the Sword and the Neck
IODINE
Brute force is generally looked down upon, denigrated, and disparaged in modern societies—but in terms of making a great hardcore-punk record, it does the trick when executed with expertise. Between the Sword and the Neck, the fourth full-length by DC hardcore-punk squad NØ MAN, is a blitzkrieg of a record, an onslaught that vocalist Maha Shami and her crew don’t relent in unleashing over the course of its brief 26 minutes. The terminology in that last sentence is deliberate, for NØ MAN’s brutal assault is a reaction in equal sonic measure to Israeli’s US-backed genocide of the Palestinian population—the theme of the record, and one that must be delivered with the utmost urgency, ferocity, and countervailing artistic violence. Between the Sword and the Neck cuts like a knife and demands that the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people be choked into submission.
Some time has elapsed since I’ve heard a record with such frightening ferocity. NØ MAN—effectively a regrouping of the early-’00s screamo brigade Majority Rule with Shami on the mic—miraculously manage to overarch the intensity of bands ranging from Cannibal Corpse to Black Breath because Shami is, indeed, screaming her brains out in response to the lives of her Palestinian brethren being at stake. When not quoting the poetry of Maha’s mother, Kamelah Shami, or referencing quotes from by Ghassan Kanafani, Fadwa Tuqan, and Mahmoud Darwish, Shami belts out her own original sentiments—even if they’re virtually impossible to understand by virtue of her full-throated delivery. Her most salient remarks are found on the final track, “Blood and Paper,” in which the vocalist screeches: “Black smoke occupies my lungs / I’m coughing until I choke / He said ‘Get to your pen now and bleed on the paper, write’ / Your pain is the pain of humanity.”
The reckoning over the atrocities that NØ MAN have internalized, analyzed, and are now unabashedly spewing back toward the sociopathic warmongers has intensified following 2024’s Glitter and Spit LP. Brace yourself, because it’s going to get even uglier from here; fortunately, NØ MAN are here to translate the omnipresent fury over rampant, callous, and unaccountable oppression into music that will grip your soul, tear it apart, and leave you begging for more.
